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'Heavy Rain' (PS3) Revealed

Indigo Prophecy (aka Fahrenheit in Europe) developer Quantic Dream will unveil during this week’s E3 in Los Angeles a new franchise entitled Heavy Rain and present a technical real-time demo on the PS3.

Called “The Casting”, this demo features a young actress attending to the casting of the game to get a role. It features a virtual actor expressing emotions and crying in real time 3D.
Quantic Dream casted young actress Aurelie Brancilhon and made her the first woman crying in real time 3D.

“Our objective was to recreate not only the likeness of a living actor, but its complete acting performance, in particular in its emotional dimension” says David Cage, the founder of Quantic Dream and director of Heavy Rain. “At Quantic Dream, we believe that emotion will be a key component of Next Gen games and we are heavily investing in technologies to create Virtual Actors since several years. By expanding the range of emotions video games have to offer, they will be able to reach a far wider audience. This demo is just the beginning of what can be achieved, but I hope it already shows the fascinating new possibilities this media will offer in the coming years”.

From a technical standpoint, The Casting features many Next Gen features including:

Full body and facial motion capture, including eyes, pupils, fingers and tongue animation;

Real time tears,

Real time wrinkles on the face,

Advanced skin shades,

Advanced rendering features (Depth of Field, Spherical Harmonics, and High Dynamic Range).

Heavy Rain is a new video game franchise, designed for next generation consoles and PC systems, based on emotional immersion and innovative game play mechanics.

“The Casting” was created in collaboration with AGEIA (physics engine), VICON PEAK (Motion Capture system for body and facial animation) and with the support of Sony Computer Entertainment.